GAIL Patterson’s orange cake.

Together with one whole beef Wellington pastie, lots of beans and mashed potato, and most of the fruit platter, interest fell on the late Gail Patterson’s left over orange cake at Erin Patterson’s triple murder trial in Morwell on Wednesday this week.

While cleaning up after that fateful lunch at her Leongatha home on Saturday afternoon, July 29, Erin told the court yesterday that she stopped and had a piece of the orange cake that was left over after the meal.

Then she had another, and another and another until the two thirds of the cake that was left was gone.

Erin felt so sick after eating the cake that she went to the toilet and spewed up the contents of her stomach again.

It’s not the first time she’d had issues with bulimia-like behaviour.

As she told the court on Tuesday, her poor eating habits started at an early age, feeding into poor body image and ultimately her decision to have gastric bypass surgery to control her weight.

Defence counsel for Erin Patterson, Colin Mandy SC probed his client’s eating habits on Day 25 of the trial.

“I mean it's been a rollercoaster over the years. When I was a kid, mum would weigh us every week to make sure we weren't putting on too much weight,” Erin Patterson told the court.

“I went to the extreme of barely eating at all then but during adulthood, going the other way and bingeing, I guess.

“I never had a good relationship with food.”

Mrs Patterson said it was a private thing, however, binge eating when no one else was around to the point of feeling sick.

“Then what would you do?” asked Mr Mandy.

“Bring it back up again.”

Fast forward to July 29, 2023, and the poisonous beef Wellington lunch and… the orange cake.

On her evidence, Mrs Patterson said that while she couldn’t remember what she said about having ovarian cancer to the group after the meal, she was ashamed of lying to the lunch party but claimed she was thinking about the weight loss surgery she didn’t want anyone to know about.

“In my mind was thinking I might need help with the kids,” she said, if she needed to go to hospital for an embarrassing operation.

“Did you mislead them?”

“I did.”

Erin was asked by Mr Mandy, on Day 26 of the trial on Wednesday, about the portions people ate.

“Ian and Heather ate all of theirs. Don ate all of his and a piece of Gail’s.

“I ate a quarter or a third, something like that,” said Erin.

Mr Mandy said there had been statements by others that she said she had eaten half.

“I mean it was about that. I wasn't measuring.”

So, half a beef Wellington pastie, some beans and mash… and two thirds of a delicious orange cake and then a bout of vomiting in the toilet.

“I felt sick. I felt over-full, so I went to the toilets and brought it back up again,” she said, noting that she felt better until early evening when she started to feel sick again, and as the court heard earlier, had diarrhea on an off for most of the night.

Erin Patterson has been charged with three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder arising out of the meal of beef Wellington and death cap mushrooms, which Erin now acknowledges accidentally included some of the mushrooms she had foraged in the Korumburra area.

Mrs Patterson has pleaded not guilty to the charges maintaining that what happened on that day was a tragedy and a terrible mistake.

The trial continues in the Supreme Court in Morwell today.